Want to make your business more predictable and sustainable?
Simplify everything!
- Systematize & document everything
- Automate everything you can without sacrificing the human element
- Put the right people in the right seats
The complications involved in the world of Property Management can be downright crippling … but only if you let it. Over the past 8 years, I’ve had my ups and downs with my management firm. I get so overwhelmed that I become frozen. I could literally sit and stare at my computer screen for hours and do absolutely nothing.
Why?
The short answer is because of a lack of systems and my overwhelming desire to complicate things. Trying to grow and run a management company with over 1000 doors is no easy task. I made the mistake of taking what should have been simple tasks and complicated the hell out of them.
Over and over and over again.
Luckily, I’ve had a partner by my side that has a level head and always gives me great words of encouragement. His famous line is the following:
“Take the extra 5 minutes to do something right”
Sounds simple right?
To some yes but to guys like me, not so much. I have to work at it. I tend to reply to emails quickly and If I could, it would always be 1 liner.
A big influence for The Simplicity Mindset was made famous by the great author, Steven R Covey and is one of his top principles.
‘Begin with the end in mind’
This concept alone is the foundation for the Simplicity Mindset. To have a Simplicity Mindset, you must be able to clearly define what it is you are trying to accomplish. I’ve lost count the number of times that I’ve come up with what I thought was the next greatest idea, to have it only backfire within days due to my lack of clarity. To not being able to clearly articulate or document the end results that I was looking for.
For the most part, believe it or not, Property Management is a very predictable business.
Every month, we go through the same cycles. Sure, there are some surprises but for the most part, there are certain things that always need to be done on a certain date or time of the month.
A lot of PM’s out there struggle with internal systems. It starts out harmless because most PM’s can handle managing 100 doors on their own or with very little help. Everything changes when you get to over 250. Doing everything yourself is no longer a reality and thus reliable and documented systems are needed.
A lot of PM’s out there struggle with internal systems. It starts out harmless because most PM’s can handle managing 100 doors on their own or with very little help. Everything changes when you get to over 250. Doing everything yourself is no longer a reality and thus reliable and documented systems are not only needed but required.
Unfortunately for PM’s out there, there are very few resources out in the marketplace that offer any kind of help in this area. Most PM’s are left to figure it out. Some do and some don’t. This is a big factor in the failure rate amongst our industry.
You are not alone in these struggles – we all go through them.
Starting TODAY, start doing these 3 things and watch your management company start to transform:
- Draw out all of your major divisions i.e. sales and marketing, fulfillment, pm, maintenance, accounting, hr, technology…
- For each of these divisions, define the top 5 things that they are responsible for
- For each one of these 5 responsibilities, define WHO does them and what systems are in place to manage and track them
This exercise alone will do one of two things. It’s either going to be a review of what you already know and have in place or it’s going to be a complete nightmare because you have no idea where to start.
Either way, you win!